I put my feet in the row erg foot straps, looked up and saw a forlorn basketball. It hid in the corner of the repurposed court that had become a mini-Hyrox arena. Eight sled lanes, eight wall ball targets, 8 ski row ergs, and 12.5m lanes of turf alongside sandbags and kettlebells. If only every cruise did this.
The other forward sections of the 14th deck were covered largely by ergs, as was the area on the 12th floor pool deck where you would usually expect to find tables and chairs.
That design decision was one of the best things about a cruise that I am sure will become a staple of the Hyrox calendar. It can only be a matter of time before they announce Caribbean and Asian cruises to go alongside a second Mediterranean edition. Maybe they could segue late March’s Miami HYROX straight into a 3-day cruise to the Bahamas for R ‘n’ R, rum and a beach 5K.
NO ELITE15 RACE
Not that all 2,500 passengers embarked full of optimism. Not least because Hyrox announced that the first Elite15 race of the season would take place on board when the ship was in dock, in the form of a (untelevised) time trial…and then changed their minds. The idea had few fans, and from what I gathered most of the potential E15 athletes didn’t like the idea.
And that’s before they even knew what it would be like. When I walked around the running track it was obvious there are far too many places where metal edges protrude to within inches of the two narrow lanes. The lightest of misty drizzles on the day would make serious injury a near-certainty and with nowhere else to put the race at such short notice it would have torpedoed the entire Elite racing calendar.
It’s so obviously an unsuitable venue that I wouldn’t be surprised if Hyrox asked Thompson Holidays (TUI) whether Mein Schiff 4 could host such an event, TUI said yes, then Hyrox went onboard to scope it out and quickly changed their minds. Wise decision.
A SHIP FULL OF CRUISE ROOKIES
And Mo Füerste might have been changing his mind about the whole cruise on embarkation day. Before you leave harbour, it is mandatory to go to a safety briefing at your evacuation muster station. We were all reminded of this when we boarded and given a two-hour window to attend a 1-minute session. (Less in my case: the safety officer said, “Come here when the alarm sounds, and the lifejackets are over there. That’s it. You can go now.” A colleague behind him then pointed out where the exit was and he said “Oh yeah, exit’s there.”)
But come 9pm – the deadline – 220 people (1 in 10) had still not attended their briefing. Ship’s captain spoke over the tannoy again to tell us this was important and mandatory and please could we do what we were supposed to.
Half an hour later. 75 people had still not attended, so Füerste came on to remonstrate with us, which I think works very well in a German accent. He was not best pleased and reminded us again that we couldn’t set sail until we’d all been briefed. He told us that never in the history of Mein Schiff 4 had they gotten this far into the evening with so many people failing to turn up.
Imagine his tone at 10pm when we still had over 20 holdouts: it was a proper scolding.
By 10.30pm everyone had attended their muster briefing, although I have it on good authority that at least one person sent a proxy because they are well-known and didn’t want to face the embarrassment of being so late.
ORGANISED WORKOUTS
Les Mills were on board doing Pilates workouts on their Reformer equipment, which seems to be the medieval rack of exercise modalities. The giant boxes were still being carried on board as we embarked but were all in place for the first class the following day.
PRVN were onboard as well to provide coaching for other workout class options including ‘365 Foundations,’ ‘365 Power’ (dumbbells and sandbags) and the ‘365 Arena Workout’ on the converted basketball court. Cole Learn was the advertised coach for that, but he was a late scratch so PRVN coaches – who almost all seem to look like James Newbury – took over.
When I arrived for the Arena workout on the first morning, the coaches apologised that some of us would have to take turns using the equipment as they were told during planning that there would be 40 people, but the system allowed 50 people to reserve places. It was also nothing like the Z2-3 workout advertised, but rather a CrossFit-esque format, with 45-second bursts of activity in a 12 minute workout following 20 minutes of warming up. The wall balls were fun, despite or perhaps especially because I discovered that when the guy next to me doesn’t break for 45 seconds, neither do I.
The dangerously thrilling part though was doing burpee broad jumps inches away from people doing farmers carries. Picture yourself on the floor while an over-excited fellow passengers sways past you, almost directly over your head and hands, with a couple of 32kg kettlebells and rapidly loosening grip. The danger of being kicked in the head by the burpeeing person in front of you seemed benign by comparison.
I also attended the ‘365 Engine’ workout, which was much less hazardous. A structured 45-minute session running, rowing and ski-ing that, while not designed to be competitive, was inevitably very competitive.
Shoutout to 68 year old Norman Mawhinney, World Champion and record holder, who I battled on the rower (he left me on the runs). I then teamed up with him and his wife Sarah to absolutely blast the ergs for eight minutes. I finished on the floor, desperately trying to suck in air like the time I did wall balls in a relay.
Meeting impressive people like him and competing without really competing, was probably the best part of the cruise. Especially for those of us who don’t have Hyrox or fitness ‘communities’ on our doorstep.
Him shouting, “KEEP GOING!!” when I was deep in an anaerobic pit on the ski will stay with me…
WHY COULDN’T WE USE THE HYROX EQUIPMENT?
I have a training programme that I follow rigorously. A lot of people on the cruise were in the same bo…I mean, they also do that. Then there were subElite and Elite athletes on board who REALLY follow a training programme rigorously. One of the things we assumed just from the nature of such a cruise, and from the marketing, was that we would have ready if regulated access to Hyrox equipment for our personal training. It was two days before the cruise, having asked for particulars, that we were told no. The equipment would be almost entirely reserved for classes, excepting a couple of low-capacity, one-hour evening slots.
To their credit, Hyrox then spent the last two days before sailing trying to open up whatever limited access might be possible. I booked an open gym session in the arena for 2pm one day, only to be turned away again because Hyrox had reallocated that time for an extra class. This happened to others, multiple times.
Obviously it’s a balancing act. You can’t have 2,500 people with unrestricted access to a few dozen pieces of equipment and had we thought it all through beforehand it was a problem we could have predicted. I think it was more the initial feedback that we would have zero access, which had a number of us concerned.
There was a small ship’s gym that we also used, but it was roughly what you’d expect: 10 treadmills, a few ergs, machines, and minimal weights.
So how do you fix the problem of 2,000+ Hyrox enthusiasts on an explicitly workout-orientated cruise? One option would be for Hyrox to hone their target audience for the next one. For anyone thinking of getting into Hyrox or very new to it, the setup was great and I highly recommend it. But they gave tickets to every World Championship Age Group champion so clearly wanted very serious athletes on board too, but those groups have quite different needs.
The first group is far bigger and thus more lucrative, so that should probably be where they set their marketing compass. That, and more clarity around the limited non-class access to equipment, would fix most of the issue. And if you put on a cruise in the off-season, there are still plenty of top athletes very happy to take a week or two off from their usual regime, who would love this.
Another option is size-limited shore excursions to top local Hyrox gyms. (Shore runs were already on the programme.) Jude led a group of about a dozen sub-elite and Elite guys to La Huella Workout Club in Barcelona, where he put his fluent Spanish skills to good use in getting them all free access. Shoutout to the owner Michelle for accommodating them so generously.
MERCH SUCKERS…INCLUDING ME
Lest you think I consider myself above clamouring for Hyrox merch…I am not. The Hyrox shop was advertised and signposted on board, but conspicuous by its absence until an announcement on day 2 that it would open from midnight to 2pm, and then during the following day. I figured it would probably sell out quickly and didn’t want to miss out on branded Hyrox Cruise gear. The queue snaked through the shopping corridor/mall and through the bar, and I joined it when it was about half a total burpee broad jumps distance away from the entrance.
Twenty minutes after the sale opened I made it into the merch shop, which was actually a few shelves in an existing shop. The Hyrox merch consisted of the usual gear (shoes, backpacks, shorts, shirts). And a single cruise design put onto black hoodies, and men’s and women’s shirts. For just shy of €40 and another 15 minutes queue at checkout I scalped a shirt. And yes, I will wear it a lot, even if I’m embarrassed about having queued so long and paid so much to get it.
REVISED ROUTE
Jude and I did Hyrox Valencia and with Rachael we took an overnight ferry from Valencia to Mallorca for the start of the cruise. We were three of about 12 total foot passengers – an afterthought to the freight traffic as was obvious from the struggle to board between the trucks, forcing our way through the wind tunnel created by the vehicles and eventually boarding.
From 10pm the Hedy Lamarr motored through 10 hours of a storm that pitched us into very deep swells that had the hull making loud groaning noises. Jude’s head and stomach responded by doing the same thing and we all got banged around far too much to sleep for anything more than about three hours each.
That storm made its way north towards France once we got to Mallorca, and once on board we were told that the stop in Marseille had been abandoned so we would stop instead in…Valencia. Hey ho.
I COULDA BEEN A CONTENDER
Saturday evening saw the final stages of a competition that started the night before. I got chatting with a guy called Charlie during the over-40’s fitness panel. Quick backstory on Charlie: he’s from LA, lives in London, has done only doubles so far and is making his singles debut in Birmingham.
He was going to the over-40’s panel as a 39 year-old “to get ready.” We had a great time chatting and after the panel he forced me to do the blind row test. For about 2 hours, 20 people every few minutes lined up, with the rower screens covered, to try and do as close as possible to 365 metres. I was thoroughly impressed with myself for scoring 359m but it wasn’t enough to make the final 24.
The 24 met in the arena, each one paired with a VIP coach or athlete of the opposite sex, for a series of challenges to produce one winner who would go home with a new watch and free accommodation to a hotel in Hong Kong during next year’s Worlds.
The final challenge was a childhood Christmas classic with a twist. Hold onto a three-foot high pole with one end on the ground, and your forehead on the top, put your forehead on it, and spin round 10 times. Then, as the world swims round your head, run to the other end of the sled track and do (I think it was 10 or 20) wallballs.
HATERS BEGONE
Most of the online distaste for the cruise is from people who were never the target audience. For example people who hate cruises, Hyrox and anything structured. Or who thought Hyrox was marketing four days in late October as people’s principal summer holiday and the ultimate relaxation rolled into one. (That’s no shade if it IS your primary holiday but it wasn’t being sold as such.)
And Hyrox won’t worry about the hater types exercising their option to not go, as there are plenty of people (I’m sure more now than before) who will happily part with their money.
CRUISE REVIEW – THE FINAL WORD
Don’t go if you are religiously attached to an inflexible training programme. But if you can cope with four days of largely class-based workouts and fitting in some Zone 1&2 on the side, do it. It’s great fun to be around so many people with a shared interest and focus, there’s something fantastic about working out on deck of a moving ship, and I’ll never get tired of unlimited buffets.
Bring on the next one please!
